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Morgan Horse Series #3
Rusty: The High-Flying Morgan Horse
Rusty introduces readers to the exciting world of show jumping. As the story opens, Frosty has her foal and Heather is thrilled with the adorable gray filly. While Heather is kept busy training the foal, she also discovers the thrills of jumping with Rusty, her favorite gelding. Heather decides to enter a jumping competition and the duo have a fantastic time and win an impressive ribbon. Quickly making plans for more competitions, everything is going well until Heather suddenly begins to doubt her own abilities. At the same time, Heather notices that there is something wrong with her filly. Will Nicholas, a new friend, be able to help Heather overcome her fears and win the Tri-County Jump-Off? And what will happen to Shadow, Frosty’s foal? This is one journey you don’t want to miss!
222 pages, Perfect Paperback
First published September 1, 2004
5 people are currently reading
39 people want to read
About the author
Ellen F. Feld
21 books23 followersEllen Feld is an IRA/Children's Choices winner (twice) who began writing about horses more than 20 years ago. At first she wrote for small, regional magazines, but within a few short years, her work began to appear regularly in large, national publications. In 2001, while waiting for her next assignment, Ms. Feld wrote a short story about a Morgan Horse. That tale became the first chapter of Blackjack: Dreaming of a Morgan Horse. The book went on to win a coveted Children s Choices award, an honor bestowed jointly by the International Reading Association and the Children s Book Council. To date, Ms. Feld has authored fifteen books, including seven in the Morgan Horse series and three in the best-selling "Donkey-Donk" series. She lives in Massachusetts with her husband, two children, twelve horses, one miniature donkey, and assorted other pets.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
January 27, 2010
I received this book through the Librarything Member Giveaway Program. I was the epitome of a horse-crazy girl while growing up, I've always made habit of reading every horse story I lay hands on, and I was so excited to discover this Morgan Horse Series. I love how this series delves into the traits of a specific breed of riding horse, but my favorite thing about it is that each book focuses on a different riding discipline. It seems like nearly all of the horse stories I read growing up dealt with horse racing, Western riding, or show jumping. I really, really loved the idea of a series showing off all sorts of riding disciplines.
Rusty, however, didn't wow me. While the book was really cute, I found it lightweight and too inconstant for my taste. Even though I loved how multiple riding disciplines were referenced in the story, the heroine Heather Richardson bothered me. Her age was never given, and I kept sliding my guess of how old she is with every new scene I read. Her best friend is a college student? Okay, maybe she’s 16. Her parents drive her around? Okay, maybe 14. She isn’t interested in talking about boys yet? Okay, 12. It takes her an appallingly long time to figure out that she did not, in fact, train her friend’s championship jumper to jump, even after her friend gently points this out to her? 10 years old, tops.
Heather is written as a character with tremendous riding ability, but she shows incredible ignorance when it comes to a lot of general horse information. She does learn a lot in the course of this book, but it’s all such passive learning. She doesn’t spend much time asking questions, which makes me think she’s a dumb as dirt, and she takes no formal riding lessons at all, which makes it very hard for me to accept her as an expert rider at such an early age – described as such in the text as, “[Rusty’s:] talented rider, with her smooth seat and responsive hands, blended perfectly with the animal.” (p. 46).
All of the new things she learns about training and caring for horses are directly because someone else observed her making a mistake and corrected her on it. I had a very hard time sympathizing with Heather after the birth of her mare’s new foal because with all of Heather’s excitement leading up to the birth, none of it spilled over into learning anything about foals. With all the preparation leading up to the birth of her very first foal, Heather never once thought about possible names for it? Even with the stable’s owner being an experienced breeder and Heather’s “mentor” and “second father” to boot, she never asked him to explain a typical birthing scenario? Or asked how she ought to go about training the new foal?
It's even more aggravating because Heather does make smart choices at times – she just quickly follows them up with foolish ones. My pleasure at reading this story really waned at trying to correlate Heather’s two strongest character traits: that of a girl with such little initiative in learning, and that of a girl to whom “…the fiery, stylish actions of saddleseat brought a new passion, and she soon developed a fabulous ability to bring out the best in a horse trained in that discipline.” (p. 53)
And I wonder why basic horse terminology like ‘sire’ and ‘dam’ were defined so clumsily in this book. Rusty is the third book in this series, and the series setting is a breeding farm. Wouldn’t terms like this have come up before? And if it’s just a matter of the author preferring to define certain equestrian terms within the text of each book, I wonder why other terms that may be unfamiliar to young readers, like ‘girth’, were not also defined. I was also puzzled over the inclusion of nonstandard spellings for other equestrian terms: the preferred spelling of ‘saddleseat’ is saddle seat, according to the United States Equestrian Federation, the governing body for the sport; and this is the first story I’ve seen where English riding is consistently written as ‘english riding.’
I don’t think any of these issues would bother younger readers, though, and this book would be very appropriate for early readers (maybe nine- or ten-year-olds). I’d be cautious at giving it to children who have already read a lot of other horsey books, because the basic things so patiently explained in Rusty are likely to bore more widely-read children.
Additional information about the Morgan Horse Series, and the real horses on which the stories are in part based, is available online at the Willow Bend Publishing website.
Quotes pulled from ISBN 0970900244.
Rusty, however, didn't wow me. While the book was really cute, I found it lightweight and too inconstant for my taste. Even though I loved how multiple riding disciplines were referenced in the story, the heroine Heather Richardson bothered me. Her age was never given, and I kept sliding my guess of how old she is with every new scene I read. Her best friend is a college student? Okay, maybe she’s 16. Her parents drive her around? Okay, maybe 14. She isn’t interested in talking about boys yet? Okay, 12. It takes her an appallingly long time to figure out that she did not, in fact, train her friend’s championship jumper to jump, even after her friend gently points this out to her? 10 years old, tops.
Heather is written as a character with tremendous riding ability, but she shows incredible ignorance when it comes to a lot of general horse information. She does learn a lot in the course of this book, but it’s all such passive learning. She doesn’t spend much time asking questions, which makes me think she’s a dumb as dirt, and she takes no formal riding lessons at all, which makes it very hard for me to accept her as an expert rider at such an early age – described as such in the text as, “[Rusty’s:] talented rider, with her smooth seat and responsive hands, blended perfectly with the animal.” (p. 46).
All of the new things she learns about training and caring for horses are directly because someone else observed her making a mistake and corrected her on it. I had a very hard time sympathizing with Heather after the birth of her mare’s new foal because with all of Heather’s excitement leading up to the birth, none of it spilled over into learning anything about foals. With all the preparation leading up to the birth of her very first foal, Heather never once thought about possible names for it? Even with the stable’s owner being an experienced breeder and Heather’s “mentor” and “second father” to boot, she never asked him to explain a typical birthing scenario? Or asked how she ought to go about training the new foal?
It's even more aggravating because Heather does make smart choices at times – she just quickly follows them up with foolish ones. My pleasure at reading this story really waned at trying to correlate Heather’s two strongest character traits: that of a girl with such little initiative in learning, and that of a girl to whom “…the fiery, stylish actions of saddleseat brought a new passion, and she soon developed a fabulous ability to bring out the best in a horse trained in that discipline.” (p. 53)
And I wonder why basic horse terminology like ‘sire’ and ‘dam’ were defined so clumsily in this book. Rusty is the third book in this series, and the series setting is a breeding farm. Wouldn’t terms like this have come up before? And if it’s just a matter of the author preferring to define certain equestrian terms within the text of each book, I wonder why other terms that may be unfamiliar to young readers, like ‘girth’, were not also defined. I was also puzzled over the inclusion of nonstandard spellings for other equestrian terms: the preferred spelling of ‘saddleseat’ is saddle seat, according to the United States Equestrian Federation, the governing body for the sport; and this is the first story I’ve seen where English riding is consistently written as ‘english riding.’
I don’t think any of these issues would bother younger readers, though, and this book would be very appropriate for early readers (maybe nine- or ten-year-olds). I’d be cautious at giving it to children who have already read a lot of other horsey books, because the basic things so patiently explained in Rusty are likely to bore more widely-read children.
Additional information about the Morgan Horse Series, and the real horses on which the stories are in part based, is available online at the Willow Bend Publishing website.
Quotes pulled from ISBN 0970900244.
December 28, 2023
First off, I really love this series! Before this I didn't know much about the Morgan breed - what incredible horses!
However, I find it strange that apparently Heather did zero research on Shadow in many months that she had to prepare, read, and learn. That was my only pet peeve. :-)
However, I find it strange that apparently Heather did zero research on Shadow in many months that she had to prepare, read, and learn. That was my only pet peeve. :-)
October 12, 2020
Leaned hard into the educational with some minutiae, but fine horse story
July 30, 2010
This is my daughter Amber's favorite book in the Morgan Horse series. Heather (the main character) decides she wants to jump. She tries teaching Blackjack (the main horse character in the series) but he doesn't like it. So she takes Laura's advice and uses Rusty, a seasoned show jumper. Heather's first show goes well but then she starts to doubt herself. Her nerves and anxiety cause havoc in the ring (we've all been there!). Heather meets Nicholas, a seasoned competitor and he helps her get over her fear. There's a nice story about working together to achieve a goal. There's also a side story about Shadow, Frosty's foal. Her front legs aren't growing right and Heather has to decide, with the help of a vet, if she should have surgery to correct the problem.
September 29, 2007
This is the 3rd book in the series.
September 30, 2012
Rusty is a great book. I really like this book. It made me feel like I was watching it happen. (Reviewer aged 10)
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews